Kavalek in Huffington: Boris Gelfand in Moscow

7/2/2013 – At the age of 41, Jaromir Jagr should not have been playing in the Stanley Cup final and keeping up with the fast skating hockey players. At the age of 45, the Israeli grandmaster Boris Gelfand should not be winning major chess tournaments ahead of young talented players and world champions. But sometimes age doesn't matter, as Huffington Post columnist GM Lubomir Kavalek explains.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

Boris Gelfand Leaves All Chess Greats Behind in Moscow

By GM Lubomir Kavalek

Gelfand in deep thought, with chess magician
Mikhail Tal on the poster behind him

Last Sunday Gelfand won the prestigious Tal Memorial in Moscow ahead of
the world's top-rated grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. The next day he turned
45. He was the oldest participant, a chess relic, reversing the odds that
favor much younger players. At 22, Carlsen is half Gelfand's age.

When he wrote his first book My Most Memorable Games in 2005,
Gelfand could have hardly predicted that his greatest triumphs lie ahead
of him. But the world champion Vladimir Kramnik was impressed by Gelfand's
ability to create games where all the moves, from first to last, are linked
in a single logical chain. "This inexorable consistency in the realization
of his strategic conceptions is Gelfand's main trait," Kramnik wrote
in the Preface.

Last year, we saw the Israeli grandmaster play for the world championship
against the titleholder Vishy Anand in Moscow. After the classical part
of the match ended 6-6, Gelfand narrowly lost in the rapid tiebreaker. For
some players, it would be the highlight of their career, but Gelfand didn't
stop.

Last month, Gelfand shared first place with Levon Aronian at the Alekhine
Memorial and he honored the late world champion Mikhail Tal with another
victory. His performance in Moscow brings him back among the Top Ten players
in the FIDE rating list. When Gelfand was Carlsen's age of 22 in 1990, he
was rated third in the world behind Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. He
is still among the best 23 years later: an incredible chess longevity. He
is motivated by curiosity and wants to know what lies behind moves played
on the chessboard. He does not mind spending time on analysis.

Gelfand is one of the best prepared players. His openings are like a well-oiled
machines, working precisely, and he pays attention to every small detail.
He is rarely caught off guard. He believes the opening phase is the most
important part of the game and aims to win it every time.

The game against Hikaru Nakamura was crucial for his victory at the Tal
Memorial. Nakamura's rambunctious performance led him to the top of the
field with a winning hattrick, but pushed him down with losses in the last
three rounds. A win against Gelfand would have given Hikaru one and a half
point lead on the nearest competitors with two rounds to go – almost
a guaranteed first place.

Two more losses followed and Nakamura was out of contention for top prizes.

The preview of the big match Carlsen-Anand

The encounter between Carlsen and Anand was the most anticipated game of
the Tal Memorial. It was supposed to be a great preview of their upcoming
world championship match, but it wasn't. Anand had a bad day. He could not
make up his mind what to do with his light bishop. By the time he transferred
it to the square e6, it was too late. Carlsen finished the game with a timely
central breakthrough.

Carlsen is well aware he will face a different Anand in November. The world
champion is known for his meticulous match preparation and he will spend
the next four months to get ready. Carlsen will play the Sinquefield
Cup, September 9-15, in St. Louis, together with Aronian, Nakamura and
the U.S. champion Gata Kamsky. It will be the most significant event in
the Gateway to the West since the 1886 world championship match between
William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort.

Anand and Kramnik must be disappointed with their final results in Moscow.
It was Anand's last tournament before he defends his world title against
Carlsen in November. Kramnik dropped the first two games and could not recover.
He lost nearly 19 rating points. The inconspicuously advancing Fabiano Caruana
will pass him on the July FIDE rating list. The top four should look like
this: Carlsen 2862 points, Aronian 2813 pts, Caruana 2796 pts, Kramnik 2784
pts.

The Huffington Post is an American news website and aggregated blog founded
by Arianna Huffington and others, featuring various news sources and columnists.
The site was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet and liberal/progressive
alternative to conservative news websites. It offers coverage of politics,
media, business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world
news, and comedy. It is a top destination for news, blogs, and original
content. The Huffington Post has an active community, with over one million
comments made on the site each month. According to Nielsen NetRatings, the
site has around 13 million unique visitors per month (number for March 2010);
according to Google Analytics the number is 22 million uniques per month.

See also

12/20/2016 – His graduation from National Master and International Master to full GM took just seven months and happened 51 years ago. “A grandmaster title is like a driver’s license,” an experienced colleague told him. “You don’t yet know how to drive well, you learn on the go.” In his Huffington Post column Lubos Kavalek looks at memorable players – Flohr, Spassky, Petrosian, Fischer – and games from that time. His article is historically and didactically interesting.

See also

10/19/2016 – In his very substantial column GM Lubomir Kavalek compares World Champion Misha Tal (1936-1992) to saxophonist Charlie Parker, "both flying high with no barriers, no limits to their intuition, imagination and improvisation." In a review of October games Kavalek shares his thought on a study-like fininsh by Anand in the Tal Memorial, and compares it with masterpieces by Bent Larsen and Henry Bird. It is historically and didactically interesting.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!